He looked at me in astonishment. “What?”
“Gods, Gareth, get your staff and let’sfight.”
“I’m not moving until you explain to me what’s happening.”
Then he froze. Without even looking at him, I felt his understanding arrive.
“Farley said he found you by a greenway,” Gareth said quietly. “An angry-looking one, he said.”
Farley. The young page. I waited, hardly breathing.
“You wanted me to hurt you just now,” he went on. “You’re a hundred times more skilled as a fighter than I am, and yet you let me strike you. Where was that greenway going to take you, Mara? Where were you going? To the Old Country?
“I was on a mission,” I said flatly. “The Warden sent me. I was to go alone so as not to endanger anyone else. It was a plan. An acceptable risk.”
“Anextremerisk, I’d say.”
I laughed. “Welcome to life at Rosewarren.”
“You’re lying to me.”
“And what if I am?”
“The Warden sent you to the Old Country alone, and then you decided to disobey her and come to my laboratory instead?”
I was rapidly losing control of this situation. Fumbling for words, I could manage only a shrug.
Gareth rose to his feet and came to me. Resisting the urge to meet his eyes left me feeling like I was going to split in two.
“Whatever you had planned,” he said, “whatever you were going to do, please don’t ever do it again. Too many people love you.”
“People like you?” I finally managed to look at him, bristling. “You don’t even know me.”
“And you don’t know me,” he replied, just as sharply. “But I’d very much like to know you, and I won’t get the chance to if you’re dead.”
I couldn’t bear the rough sound of his voice. “You’re just like all the others,” I muttered, turning away.
“Oh? I’ve always thought myself terribly unique.”
“You’re far from the first moony-eyed southerner to obsess over a Rose. Most of them leave as fast as they can once they’ve gotten one of us into bed.” I turned back to glare at him, making my voice as cold as I could. “Is that what I’ll have to do to get rid of you?”
For a moment he watched me in silence. Then he retrieved his clothes and glasses and said evenly, “If you want to talk to me about what’s troubling you, I’m happy to listen. If not, we’re finished here.”
My skin crawled with shame. A hundred muddled thoughts roiled in my mind. But I couldn’t give voice to any of them. It would be like tearing open my chest and showing him my bare beating heart. I wouldn’t survive that.
My silence spoke volumes. Gareth nodded, his expression unreadable. “Good evening, then, Lady Mara,” he said quietly.
Then he turned and left, and I was alone. I let out a long, slow breath and tidied the weapons rack as the snow continued to fall.
It was better this way, I told myself. For both our sakes. Whatever this was between us, there could be no end to it but sadness.
Let him hate me. Let him think what he will.
But my fingers shook as I worked, and though I tried with all my might to forget the warmth of his touch, I couldn’t do it. With those gentle hands, he had branded me. My cheeks felt as if they’d been kissed by the sun.
Chapter 11
Later that night, once dinner was long finished and the priory had grown quiet, I gathered my courage to go to Brigid, who was recovering in the infirmary. But Danesh found me first.
